Katsiaficas family to be well-represented

The Katsiaficas family of Ellsworth will be well represented when the Class of 2009 is inducted into the New England Basketball Hall of Fame on Oct. 9 at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn.

Legendary Eagles coach Charlie Katsiaficas Sr. previously was announced as a posthumous inductee in the high school coaching category, and now his 1953-54 Ellsworth squad will be inducted in the high school team category.

In addition, Katsiaficas’ son, Charlie Katsiaficas Jr., will be the recipient of the hall’s Pathfinder Award, which is presented to someone who begins his basketball career in New England but later achieves excellence outside the region.

Others with Maine ties to be recognized, according to an announcement by the hall Tuesday, will be former referee and current Maine basketball commissioner Peter Webb, and the 1991-1994 Lawrence of Fairfield girls basketball teams.

The elder Katsiaficas, who died earlier this year at age 82, led the 1953-54 Ellsworth team to its second straight Class LL (now Class A) state championship, and the Eagles went on to reach the semifinals of the New England tournament before being edged by powerful Hillhouse High School of New Haven, Conn., 54-53.

His son, Charlie Katsiaficas Jr., currently is the athletic director and men’s basketball coach at Ponoma-Pitzer College in California, where he has led the Sagehens to nine Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championships and 10 trips to the NCAA Division III Tournament.

Before going to Pomona-Pitzer, the Ellsworth High and Tufts University graduate spent nine months as a player-coach for Lobas, a professional team in Lomma, Sweden. When he first arrived at Pomona-Pitzer in 1984, he served two years as an assistant under Gregg Popovich, now the head basketball coach for the three-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs.

He served as Pomona-Pitzer’s interim head coach in 1986-87, then was an assistant at the University of San Diego for a year before returning to Pomona-Pitzer as head coach in 1988.

Webb has been a certified basketball official for more than four decades, and he has refereed more than 2,000 high school, college and professional games.

The Houlton native also is a prominent basketball officiating clinician both nationally and around the world.

Webb also is the former president of the International Association of Approved Basketball Officials, and has received that organization’s Distinguished Service Award.

Webb already has been inducted into the Maine Sports Hall of Fame and the National Federation of State High School Associations’ Hall of Fame.

The Lawrence girls basketball dynasty of the early 1990s won four consecutive Class A state championships under coach Bruce Cooper.

The Bulldogs were led by guard Cindy Blodgett, a four-year starter who became the state’s all-time scoring leader with 2,596 points before embarking on an All-America career at the University of Maine that led to a stint in the WNBA.